Summertime
by mahhhfy
Summary: It's the beginning of summer and Booth is angry. Can Brennan figure out what's wrong in order to help him? Will Booth find a way to tell her what's been bothering him? Takes place after the inevitable hookup, spoilers through season 5
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This story takes place after the end of season 5, but we're just going to assume the whole Hannah thing never happened, because I like to forget that it did. Booth and Brennan have been together for a few months by now, and summer is just starting. **

**Some of this stuff may seem a little OOC for Booth, but he always hides his emotions really well, especially when he's in pain, and we never get to see him in the summer. If you think it's too far from Booth's personality to be believable, I suggest you go back and watch a few key moments that inspired this story. I don't want to spoil the story for you, so I listed these key moments at the end of the fic. **

**I'm still working on a new chapter for _I Died Happy_, but if I didn't publish this story soon it was going to come out of my ears**

**Note: As much as I wish I did, I don't own these characters. **

* * *

><p>This was not a good day to be anywhere near Seeley Booth. Not that he had been particularly welcoming at all for the past week, but today everything about him just screamed <em>back off<em>. He had been in a bad mood for a while. He knew it was nothing new; it happened every summer. He also knew everyone had noticed and reacted to his mood. At first he tried to keep his temper in check because he knew the Squints weren't really used to his indiscriminate and all-encompassing anger, but when he thought about it, that fact only pissed him off even more.

He was especially irritated tonight because of their newest case out in some no-name town in the sticks. The moment he stepped out of his truck he was assaulted by the blistering heat, and it was all downhill from there. The body was especially gooey and had all the standard nauseating smells and insects. Naturally, Bones dove right in. He spent the rest of the afternoon trying to investigate, but getting information out of anyone was like pulling teeth. By the time they started the drive back to DC, Booth was ready to snap—it had been a lousy day, he had no leads, and he was sure the townspeople he had spoken to were some of the dumbest people in the country.

Booth knew his temper would even out sooner or later, he just had to give it some time. Once the weather settled and he could start the fun things like taking Parker to the beach or the park and playing in the sun, he would be able to calm down. Some summers it seemed like Parker was his only joy, especially since Bones came into his life. She had contributed to his problems more often than not during the summers since he'd met her. Before Parker… He didn't like to think about much of his life before Parker.

In the past few days he had barely spoken to Bones, not because he was annoyed with her at all, he just didn't want to let her see his anger. Their romantic relationship was still fairly new and he was afraid of scaring or hurting her. This year she had done nothing to contribute to his foul mood, but the beginning of summer never failed to set him on edge, and he needed to protect her from his demons. He was actually excited to be able to spend the summer _with_ Bones instead of just thinking about her all the time.

He and Bones were just sitting down to a session with Sweets, a new requirement for the partners since they announced their relationship to their friends and the Bureau. The FBI felt it was necessary that they attend regular sessions with the toy psychologist to ensure their relationship didn't interfere with their ability to work together. Booth and Brennan felt it was a complete waste of their time.

Brennan sat on Sweets' couch deep in thought. She didn't know what she did wrong. All she knew was that he was pulling away from her and she couldn't stop it. She didn't know if it was something she should wait for him to come to her for or if she should mention it to Sweets. Was she doing something wrong in their relationship? Maybe she made him angry and he wants her to figure it out. It seemed to her like he would have spoken to her about it by now; he very rarely kept anything from her. Whatever was wrong, it was bothering him immensely—he had barely spoken to her or touched her for a week.

From the moment they sat down Sweets noticed something was wrong with the partners. The distance between them was quite obvious—Brennan looked very unsure of herself, while Booth looked more hostile that he had seen in quite a while. Usually when they were having a fight, you could practically feel the electricity they generated in the air by the heat of their argument. That was not the case tonight. After a moment or two of observing them, Sweets asked, "Is something bothering you, Booth?"

"No. I'm fine, thank you," he said defensively.

Sweets didn't really expect any other answer from him. Booth always clammed up when he had a problem. However, the look on Brennan's face betrayed that there obviously was something wrong with her partner, and it looked like she didn't know how to handle it. Sweets zeroed in on her immediately. "Doctor Brennan? Is there something you'd like to say?"

She hesitated with her answer. Was this one of those things that was meant to stay between them? She decided there was nothing for it but to tell Sweets. "Booth has been… rather angry lately. He won't talk to me. But any time I ask him about it, he insists there's nothing wrong."

"That's because there is nothing wrong, Bones," he said, though his tone suggested otherwise.

"I don't think that's true. I'm not the only one who's noticed it. Angela said that you've been very annoyed lately and that you have an insect in your anus. If that's true you should have that removed as soon as possible, it could potentially be very dangerous. Perhaps you should consult with Hodgins."

Booth shuddered and said, "Bones, there is so much wrong with what you just said I don't even know where to begin."

She opened her mouth to respond, but the words died in her mouth. Sweets knew there must be a serious underlying issue if the partners couldn't talk to each other—they talked about everything. He was surprised that Booth didn't even correct Brennan's attempt at the colloquialism. After a minute of looking over the agent, Sweets had an epiphany. "Why don't you like the summertime Agent Booth?" he asked.

"What?" snapped Booth.

Sweets tried to hide a smile when he saw he hit a nerve. "I asked you why you dislike the summer. I've noticed a pattern since I've begun working with you, that you seem to be considerably more bad-tempered during the summer. Especially at the beginning of summer."

Booth grumbled to himself when he realized Sweets had figured him out. He shrugged and said, "It's just not my favorite season. It's hot, the fleshy bodies smell way worse, the damned mosquitoes are just about everywhere. There's always great weather on days I can't see Parker. And you see how it feels working outside in a suit and tie when it's 95 degrees."

Sweets shook his head and said, "No, I think it's more than that. I've seen you irritated but this is something else. You've been like this before and it's not just simple irritation. There is some serious anger boiling inside of you, and there is something more behind it than weather—something deeper and more personal."

Booth looked away but didn't deny he'd been very angry lately.

After a moment Sweets continued, "Agent Booth, you have a very long history of denying or hiding your feelings for the benefit of others. By doing this you sacrifice the comfort you could find in your meaningful relationships for the sake of protecting those closest to you. As you can see, the result of bottling up your emotions like this is recurring incidences of being unable to keep the hidden emotion inside of you. It bursts out of you in a nearly uncontrollable way, most commonly in some epic fits of anger. It's extremely unhealthy for you and those around you."

Sweets saw he wasn't going to respond so he offered his own observations. "This behavior fits in perfectly to your established psychological profile. After your shooting a few years ago I assumed you were furious because I didn't disclose your death to everyone on your list."

"I _was_ pissed about that, you're lucky I didn't slug you," he retorted.

"And after your brain surgery," Sweets continued, undeterred, "I believed the anger was due to frustration with yourself because you weren't remembering everything as quickly as you wanted to. As I look back on it now, I realize that your feelings extended beyond how you felt about yourself or me. _Everyone_ was different around you because the fury rolled off of you in waves, much like now. Most people avoided you altogether except for Cam." He paused. "Why is that? She seems to be the only one who isn't affected or even surprised by your behavior."

Booth kept grumbling to himself but didn't answer. Of course Cam was used to it, she'd known him long enough to know how he hated the summer. He really didn't want to sit through this nightmare of a session if this is what they wanted to talk about, but he had no choice so he just sat there and tried to pretend he was anywhere else

Brennan was shocked. She had never noticed any significant change in Booth's behavior before now, and couldn't believe that she had missed such a marked change that had affected everyone around him. She thought back on the summers she spent with him, but she couldn't remember any outbursts like the kind Sweets mentioned. Except for one. The realization made her gasp.

"What is it, Doctor Brennan?" Sweets asked.

She looked at Booth and said, "You were angry. That night I came to your house after your funeral you were very angry. I was angry too, so it didn't really matter to me at the time, but you yelled at me the moment you saw me." She remembered that night very well. He'd been in his bathtub stewing (or was it souping?) when she'd barged in on him with his beer-hat and comic book. He wasn't at all shocked or self-conscious like she'd expected him to be. He was angry. So angry, in fact, that he'd promptly begun to yell at her.

"We used to yell at each other all the time," he said. "We _still_ argue constantly. It's normal."

"You rarely yell at me like you did then. I would not call any part of that night 'normal' behavior for us." She says, looking at him pointedly.

Booth blushed at her remark, while Sweets looked far too interested in their exchange for Booth's taste.

He looked at her and said, "Well let's see… Why would I have been exceptionally angry that night? I had been shot in the chest trying to save my partner from an obsessive lunatic, and when I came back from that she was so angry with me that she didn't even seem happy that I'd survived the shooting. You punched me in the face for something that was out of my control, then broke into my house to yell at me some more, insinuating that I didn't _care_ about you." He snorted at that. He turned to Sweets, "I had to spend the rest of the summer trying to get her to trust me again. Oh yeah, that was a blast," he said sarcastically.

"Well, you should have broken protocol to let me know you were okay," she argued. "How would you feel if you had to spend two weeks thinking I was gone because of the whim of a 10 year old with a doctorate, when it all could have been avoided if you had just called me! It's not my fault Sweets chose to experiment on us."

There was silence for a moment as that statement sunk in. Brennan and Sweets both realized that she had just outed him, and Booth took a second to let the implications of what his partner just revealed hit him. When it did, he was on his feet and going for Sweets. Brennan tried to restrain him while throwing a mildly apologetic glance at Sweets.

Sweets quickly composed himself, and with a surprisingly calm voice he said, "Sit down, Booth. You're deflecting—my past actions, while admittedly foolish, are not what's at issue here. We are trying to understand your current emotional state and what is causing you to be so angry. Hopefully we might be able to address the underlying problem."

"So you did do it? Well, good. At least now I have a good reason to be pissed at you. Maybe by the end of the night I'll finally be justified in shooting you," he said as he plopped down into his seat. He sat there seething as he waited for whatever they had coming at him now.

"Doctor Brennan, can you remember any other incidents when Booth seemed abnormally angry, particularly during the summer?" Sweets asked.

She thought for a moment. "No, I can't. I have no other observations that could confirm or deny any recurrence of unusual anger from Booth," she almost shamefully admitted.

"That's because Bones _leaves_ every summer," Booth said scathingly.

Brennan was shocked by that. "I— I— …What?" She struggled to understand what Booth meant; she had no idea what to say to that outburst, and Booth wasn't being particularly forthcoming.

"Would you care to explain that statement, Agent Booth?" Sweets asked.

"I mean exactly what I said. Every summer, Bones takes off. She doesn't always leave physically, but every year she was gone from me as if she took a flight to the moon. She would pull away so much that it felt like she wasn't even there, even if she never left town. Then again, there have been summers when she really wasn't there, off in Guatemala or Tibet or Timbuktu."

Brennan looked back and forth between Booth and Sweets and said, "I don't know what that means."

After a moment or two of tense silence, Booth decided to explain himself further. To no one in particular he said, "This is the first summer I have Bones. I don't mean romantically, though that's true too. She's just always been off doing her own thing during the summer. The summer after we first met, she wanted nothing to do with me. I spent months trying to contact her but she made sure that would be impossible. I finally had to go through another agency before I could find my way into the same room with her, and that took over a year. After that first year of being partners, she took off on a dig for the whole summer. It was just as well because I didn't want to subject her to my short temper that would have started about the time she left—I'm always pissed at the world when summer starts, and we argued enough at the time when I was in a normal mood. She didn't need to deal with me when I couldn't keep a level head. But she had just found her mother and I wanted to be there for her, as her friend. I spent most of that summer worrying about her and wondering if she was okay.

"The next year, I spent the whole damn summer trying to get her out of the lab and into the field with me. I thought she was mad at me for arresting her father, but that wasn't the case. It was because I let Zack take off for Iraq, not that she told me that until he came back to the lab. She might have been in D.C. physically, but for me she was hundreds of miles away, completely unreachable. Even then I could feel the separation like it was a physical loss. Then there was the summer after that. I spent two weeks without her, which was hard enough, but then I came back to a seriously pissed off partner who made it perfectly clear that she never wanted to go to my funeral, even though she really believed I was dead. 'A complete waste of time,' she called it. That hurts, you know, to know that the person closest to you refuses to honor your life when it's over. Especially since I had decided to… Well never mind that, it's over now." He was silent for a minute before he continued. Brennan's face had been an unreadable mask while he spoke, but when he said she hurt him, there was a flash of pain and regret in her eyes.

"The summer after that I had to deal with figuring out what was real and what wasn't. Yeah, it was really frustrating, especially since the one person I would have gone to for help with that, whether she was my partner or wife, had left me. Took off without a word." He looked sad and defeated.

When he realized he hadn't finished his explanation, he continued with renewed venom, "And let's not forget last summer. I didn't think there was any way to top the summer recovering from brain surgery, but boy was I wrong. Not only was Bones gone, and I mean really _gone_, but I was back in the desert, teaching children to be killers. Then again, maybe that wouldn't have been necessary if _somebody_ hadn't pushed me to take a gamble that made me lose everything."

With that last biting comment, Sweets and Brennan winced. It was impossible for anyone in that room to regret their actions from that time any more than they already did. Booth realized he had taken his bitterness a little too far when he saw their faces. He knew he needed to get out of there before he said something he would seriously regret.

"I'm sorry Sweets, but this is just not something I'm willing to discuss with you. You want me to work through my anger? Fine, I can do that. But I absolutely refuse to do it under the supervision of the FBI or Doogie Howser's kid brother. Come on Bones, let's go home." With that, Booth walked out and Brennan followed somewhat timidly.

Sweets didn't fight Booth's decision to leave. After years of working with the partners, he was well aware that there were many things they would only share with each other. At least he knew they would talk. If anyone could help Booth through this, it would be Brennan.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Sorry for outing Sweets twice in two fics, but there really isn't anything else he's done wrong that Booth didn't know about.<strong>

****If you want to know the inspiration for this fic, or you don't believe that Booth would be so affected by the things he says are bothering him, watch these moments: In season 3 premier, he was trying SO hard to get her to work with him, he said she hadn't called him for weeks, and the look on his face when Brennan told him she wanted to interrogate a suspect with him was beautiful.  
>In the season 3 finale, he's seems irritable when he's explaining to Brennan why he had to play dead, and he looked like it hurt his feelings a bit when she said she didn't want to be at his funeral. Plus he was kinda pissed when he showed up in his bathroom, then he yelled at Cam right after on the phone.<br>In the season 5 premier, his reaction to when Sweets asked him if he'd been in touch with Brennan since he'd been released from the hospital, then he looked so thrilled to finally see her when she sat on him in her office.****

****I made up the bit about her being on a dig after their first year as partners, but it seems like something she would have done after finding her mother.****

****I'm almost done writing the second chapter, so that will be posted soon =)****

****As always, I love to hear from you and I'm dying to know what you think of my story. I'm a little worried it doesn't all make sense. If you find something confusing, let me know so I can edit it.****


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey everyone, here's chapter 2. I guess I lied when I said I was almost done writing this chapter and that it would be done soon, because this just took on a life of its own in some places. Anyway, here it is: the explanation.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bones**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>

The silence was deafening to her. It was a tangible and immensely uncomfortable presence in the SUV. Booth gripped the steering wheel so tightly that Brennan thought if he turned too quickly he could rip it right off. At her only attempt to speak, he said "Not now, Bones" in a tone that made it clear he was serious. She wasn't sure if she'd ever seen him so angry. When they had first become partners he'd told her that she wouldn't want to see him angry. She naturally assumed that he was just trying to deny that he was furious at the time, but if this is what Booth being angry was like then he was right—she never wanted to see this again.

Booth spent the drive trying desperately to reign in his emotions. Sweets tried his patience on the best of days, but tonight he came too close to knocking the kid out. That session had been a real nightmare, and now he had to go home and talk about all the things he spent the past weeks trying his hardest to forget. He knew he owed Bones an explanation, but he couldn't imagine how he would put what he was feeling into words. Some things he knew he would never be able to reveal because of national security protocol, but he would to tell her everything he could. He didn't know how he could keep it from her anymore, and the truth was that he didn't want to. He needed her to know.

By the time they arrived at his apartment, he figured he was finally calm enough to talk with Brennan. They sat down on the couch, and he finally looked up into his partners eyes. He hadn't realized how long it had been since he really looked her in the eye, but it had been far too long. There was something about her eyes that grounded him, even when he found himself lost in them. She was worried, that much was clear, but she was also hurt. He never wanted to make her hurt. _Way to go, dirtbag_, he thought.

He sighed. "Bones, I'm sorry I haven't talked to you," he said. "I've just been so angry, and anytime we talked, _really_ talked, that would have been obvious. I didn't want you to think I was angry with you."

"But I did think that. What else was I supposed to think when you pulled away the way you did? From what you said in Sweets' office, it seems like you are angry with me, or at least you were. Why did you never tell me, don't you trust me?"

"Now you _know_ that's not the case," he growled. He was starting to get agitated again. She knew perfectly well that he'd always trusted her more than anyone. He took deep breaths to try to calm himself. He really didn't want this to turn into a shouting match, but his gut told him this was going to get worse before it got better.

She saw him trying to calm down and thought that was the last thing he should be doing. She was done feeling insecure, and now she was annoyed. She decided that pissing him off was probably the right way to go in this situation, since everything else she tried had failed miserably. Maybe he'd be more open with her if she got him to yell; it usually worked when they were arguing during a case. Whatever he had bottled up inside of him needed to be let out one way or another. So she went on the offensive.

"Then why is it I had no idea how much you hate the summer? Why did I have to hear about it from Sweets? How come I never knew that my own actions were a contributing factor for your anger?"

"Jeez Bones, I'm trying to tell you, just calm down!" Okay, so the whole calming down plan wasn't going as well as he hoped it would. "You're not the only reason I hate the summer, not even close. Like I said in Sweets' office, the beginning of summer has always put me on edge. It's just that after I met you, I had new reasons to be pissed."

"Yes, you already said that. What you haven't told me is why you've always hated summer. And I still want to know why you've kept it from me!"

"I didn't purposely keep it from you. If you had been around for other summers, then I would have told you all about it!" _Calm down, dammit._ He closed his eyes and tried to compose himself. _Deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out. Calm_. "Whenever you came back to me, whether you were returning from a dig or you stopped being mad at me, I didn't want to risk pushing you away. I was always so happy to have you back that the anger wasn't important anymore I guess. I got over it quickly because being with you makes me happy—it made the anger go away." Brennan looked like she had something to say to that but she kept it to herself. She wanted the answer to her other question so she let him continue. "It's not that you never make me angry, because believe me you definitely can, but when I'm with you I'm never angry for no reason. This summer hasn't been nearly as bad as other years because I have you with me most of the time."

He paused for a long minute to gather his thoughts. "Summer has always been a hard time for me. I've always hated it because it brings up bad memories. Sometimes when the warm weather starts I almost feel like I'm waiting for something bad to happen," he said.

"You know about my dad." He sighed. "When I was a kid, I was one of the only people I knew who hated summer vacation. No school meant I had to spend my time finding ways to avoid my dad. And no matter how much I could find to do during the day, I almost always had to go home at night. When my brother and I were old enough to take care of ourselves, my mom started taking a second job during the summer to make ends meet. Or maybe it was to avoid him, I don't know. He wasn't exactly pleasant when it was hot out. He was a nasty son of a bitch, actually. That's probably another part of my problem. I don't like having something like that in common with him."

"Booth," she interrupted, taking his face in her hands. "You are _not _your father. You are a good man," she said emphatically.

He smiled sadly. "I know. But thanks for saying that, Bones.

"Even summers after he left and while I was in college were miserable. After so many years of hating the summer, it wasn't like that would just go away—the memories were still there. In college I took a lot summer courses and played on a couple of sports teams to try to distract myself, but there was no physical or mental workload I could give myself that would have been a good enough distraction. The upside to that was that I was always in great shape and I was able to earn my degree a year early."

"Then I left for the Army." He stopped; she reached out to take his hand and grasped it tightly. She knew his time in the Army was very hard and that he didn't like to talk about it. "You know, you train with the same men for months, sometimes even years. You get close to each other, become brothers. It's important that we bond because it makes us a better, more effective unit. It keeps us safe and it keeps us sane. But when you lose someone…" He broke off and took a steadying breath. "The what-if's are endless. What if moved faster? What if we left five minutes earlier? What if he was standing two inches to the right? What if I had said something to change things? What if I had told him to get down just_ one more time_?" he said in an agonized whisper. "You know there's nothing you can do, but you still can't help but wonder how it could have turned out differently."

He shook his head, pulling himself out of his reverie. "Did you know I was a prisoner of war, Bones? You probably figured it out the first time you saw my x-rays. It was in June of my second year in the Rangers. We were in enemy territory when our unit was ambushed. A grenade went off close to a buddy of mine. He lost his weapon and he was disoriented—he couldn't get to cover. I saw the enemy going after him to finish him off, so I left my position and ran to him. I had to get him to safety, but there was another explosion from behind me that sent shrapnel flying everywhere. I caught a piece in the leg and Randall, he… he got hit in the chest. I wasn't able to drag him away in time, so I wrapped myself around him. I told him to hold on, that help was coming soon. But the rest of the unit was under attack; I knew they wouldn't get to us for at least a few minutes. When the enemy fighters got to us, they started kicking me and tried to pull me off of him, but I wouldn't let them. After a while I was too weak to hold onto him anymore. When they pulled me off him, he'd already bled out. They dragged me off somewhere, I found out later it was a basement in one of their training facilities. They wanted information about our mission—who or what we were after, when we planned to attack, where we were stationed, anything they thought I could give them. They gave it all they had but I never cracked," he said with the faintest glimmer of pride. "I spent five weeks as their prisoner until the rest of my unit stormed the compound to get me back. It took another few months before my feet healed enough for me to go out on missions again."

Brennan felt sick to her stomach. She could usually withstand a great deal in her line of work, but the thought of him enduring such agony was more than she could bear. She vividly remembered his x-rays; his feet had been badly beaten with pipes or hoses. It had to have been excruciating, which is why it is usually such an effective method of torture. That he had been able to withstand it and any other forms of torture they put him through when he already had several fractured ribs and a leg wound was a testament to his formidable strength and fortitude, but she still wished that he never had to go through that.

"The desert is an especially miserable place during the summer," he said, pulling her from her dark thoughts. "Sweets said that my issues go deeper than hating the weather, and he was right, but trudging through sand in desert camouflage and carrying at least 40 pounds of gear when it's 120 degrees in the shade is a horrible way to spend a day. Especially knowing what we were trying to get to: mass murderers and terrorists and other monsters that it was my duty to kill."

He fell silent. He didn't really need to continue; they both knew the guilt he carried because of the lives he had taken in service to his country. He told her once, the first time she had killed someone, that there was a steep cost to take a life. She knew there was, having felt it herself, but she could only imagine what it was like to feel the weight of more than 50 lives on your conscience, especially for a man like Booth.

"Anyway," he continued, "a while after I was discharged I met Rebecca. We'd been dating for about a year when she got pregnant. Summer was just about to start when she told me, and then everything fell apart between us. All summer I was told I couldn't have any involvement with her pregnancy, but I was still one of the primary targets of her pregnancy hormones. It didn't help at all that that summer was one of the hottest, muggiest summers to hit DC in 15 years. Going outside for even a minute was like breathing through a wet blanket. A really hot wet blanket. But as hard as it was to get through that summer, it was worth it. It brought me Parker. He was the best thing that ever happened to me until we partnered up. Even though I had almost no parental rights, having a son gave me something to look forward to all the time. Then again, it also gave me something else to lose. For those first few years Rebecca pretty much used my time with Parker as a way to punish me. If I didn't behave myself, she wouldn't let me see him. It was a bad situation, but at least I had my son, even if it was just some of the time."

"Then I met you," he said with a smile in his eyes. "The second I laid eyes on you I just _knew_ you were something special. I was drawn to you in a way that I've never been with anyone else. It was like there was a magnet in my gut that was attracted to you. The closer I got to you the stronger the pull was, but no amount of time or distance ever made it go away. I really thought we were going somewhere amazing, then just like that it was over and you were gone. Sure I was angry with you at first; you had been so infuriating and condescending. But that pull I felt towards you never went away. It drove me nuts. And let's not forget that was the year I quit gambling. I don't know if I told you that I quit cold turkey, but that's how it happened. One kiss from you and I was done. From then on I was addicted to you. You broke a hold that gambling had had on me for years. Even after you refused to work with me again, I wouldn't go back to that, because I knew that somehow I had to get you to work with me again. It's hard to explain; even though I wanted to gamble, I _needed_ to be with you, somehow." He chuckled, "I'm still not sure how I kept myself from shooting Zack—no matter what I did the kid wouldn't let me talk to you. Even when I showed up at the Jeffersonian he wouldn't be intimidated, and believe me, I tried. I think he was more afraid of pissing you off than me."

"He was a good assistant," Brennan murmured.

"Yeah," agreed Booth. "He's the most clueless genius I've ever met or heard of. For at least the first year I knew him I had to restrain myself from putting him in a choke hold. He had no idea how to interact with the living, and he had a real gift for pissing me off." He paused. "I'm not an idiot. In fact, I always considered myself pretty smart until I met you people. I graduated with honors and I'm a good FBI agent, but I took two steps inside that lab and I felt like a kid thrown into advanced calculus or something. Zack was the worst—he'd say something that made no sense at all, then when I'd ask someone to explain it, he'd look me in the eye and say he just did, looking at me like a child should have been able to follow the squint-speak he threw at me."

He was getting agitated again, Brennan could feel the irritation practically coming off of him in waves. "Out of nowhere, he starts asking all these questions about Iraq and what to do when you get shot at. Then he shows me a letter from the White House and takes off for Iraq, leaving me to tell everyone he's gone to a warzone, all because he tells me I'm an honorable man."

"You _are_ an honorable man," Brennan interjected.

"Fat load of good it did me. I let the kid go, I do the right thing by him, and then what? You shut yourself up in the lab for months on end and shut me the hell out. Not that you actually admitted that's what you were doing. Then he comes back and just like that everything is hunky-dory. Or at least we think it is. Then the kid gets mixed up with a serial killer because he's too damn smart for his own good. And how do we know it wasn't because of something that happened when he was in Iraq? He might have seen or done something that made him snap, something that would have made him susceptible to someone like Gormogon. Then it all would have been my fault because I let him go in the first place."

Brennan didn't know what to say. Zack was still a sore spot for everyone at the lab. She never realized it would be for Booth as well, though she thought she should have assumed it would be given Booth's tendency to take everything on himself. "I probably could have done something about it," he continued, "if I had just noticed the signs that he'd killed somebody. I mean Zack, he was a good kid, there had to be _signs_ that he was dealing with the burden of taking a life, and I never saw those signs! I just let Gormogon's freakin' apprentice, my number one goddamned priority, walk around the lab right in front of my face every day and I had no idea! That summer was unbearable too, how could it not be? All my spare time was spent reliving the past months, going over Zack's behavior and thinking about what I could have done differently. It was almost like he died—those damned what-if's all over again. And of course I had to fix my broken relationship with you." He huffed out a sigh. He could feel the anger rising in him again despite his efforts to tamper it.

She wanted to say something to comfort him, to make him understand that Zack's betrayal was in no way his fault, but somehow she instinctively knew not to stop him—he needed to say what was on his mind. These were things that had been bothering him for a very long time. He needed to let go of this burden and she needed to understand these things she never knew about him because he kept them locked inside himself. Besides, he was finally getting to the part she needed to hear most—he was about to explain why he had been so angry with her in Sweets' office.

"I told you before, after I was shot I was told to provide the Bureau with a list of the people to be informed that I hadn't died, and was specifically told to keep it as short as possible. That list had you, Parker, Rebecca, and Jared on it. My superiors assured me that the people on that list would be notified that I wasn't really dead and would be given a number they could use to contact me once I was stable enough to be moved from the hospital. During those two weeks away from you I didn't know what to think about you not calling me. I had never died before and I could never really predict what you would do in any situation, but given past attempts to be _overprotective_," he spat the word out like it was distasteful, "I assumed you were angry with me. So I took that time away from you to think about how either one of us could have died that night. The bullet could have landed an inch lower or I could have been too slow to react and it would have hit you. I decided that when I got back I was going to tell you how important you were to me, maybe even that I loved you. Of course, that plan was shot to hell the second your fist collided with my face. Then you shut me out—_again_—so there really wasn't any room for my feelings. You didn't want to hear that I needed you, that I loved you. Especially after we lost Zack, there was no way you would have accepted it. And _don't _tell me that I can't possibly have known what your feelings were. I know you, Temperance; I can tell you for certain that it would have been a disaster to tell you what you meant to me just after you lost someone you cared for. It was hard enough to get you to accept my friendship. Yeah, I was hurt and angry, but so were you. Your pain was all that really mattered to me, so it was easy to forget my own. When you weren't around, which was a lot, I was able to vent my anger and frustration on anyone who came near me."

She was tearing up, though whether it was from sadness of his behalf or anger that he kept this from her, she didn't know. "We talked about this before," she said. "We talked about when you were shot and when I thought you were dead. You never said a word about how anything I did hurt you. You never told me you were angry with me for any of it. Why didn't you tell me then?"

"I wasn't angry anymore. I—"

"LIAR!" she shouted, "You're angry now, I can see it in your eyes. If you're angry about it now, you must have been angry about it then.

"_Everything_ makes me angry right now, Bones! I'm sure if I saw another ice cream truck I'd shoot the damn clown on it without hesitation!" he yelled.

She barked out a laugh at the ridiculous memory, drawing a smirk from Booth, but it wasn't enough to really detract from their argument.

"I really wasn't angry when we talked about it," he said. "After I had had the time to think about what went on then, I wasn't angry about what you did and said, because I understood why you did it. Going to my funeral would have meant saying goodbye, and that was something you couldn't handle. Yeah, it still hurt, but in the end you did actually show up, so it didn't really matter either way. I forgot about it and tried to move on. Not only that, but I knew it wasn't really an issue anymore because you promised me that when I die that you'd come visit my grave and talk to me. It may not have seemed like a really big thing to you, but it meant a lot to me, and you did say you'd go to my wake."

After a moment or two, she said, "That isn't all of it."

"What?" _She's angry,_ he thought. _Why is she angry?_ "Yes, it is. What else—"

"You think I can't read you by now?" she yelled. "When you talked about the summer after your brain surgery, you had the most heart-crushing look on your face. Was it because you woke up to find the life you had in the dream wasn't real? Because I wasn't your wife?"

"Of course not! I won't pretend that it wasn't painful to wake up and realize that the love of my life was just my friend and partner, but I wasn't going to blame you for something that was out of your control."

"But it was!" she said. "I read you the novel I was writing, which directly influenced—"

"It had nothing to do with any dream, Bones! I almost died! Again! But this time instead of it being some normal danger that attacked quickly, this time I had time to think about the possibility of my approaching death! Then I wake up after slipping into a coma and I can't figure out what memories are real and what were from a dream. I looked to you for the answers, because in all of my memories you were always the one I went to for answers, but you weren't there. I woke up one morning and everyone was trying to find a way to explain to me that you had taken a flight to Guatemala. I didn't hear a word from you for six weeks!"

"I left for you. You thought—"

"Yeah, I thought you were my wife. I get that that scared you, but I had just had brain surgery, so excuse me if I was a little _confused_." By now he was really shouting. "God Bones, you didn't even say goodbye. I needed you and _you abandoned me_!"

The words struck her like a slap in the face. She could hardly breathe from the pain it caused her.

Booth instantly regretted his words. _There it is_, he thought. _That heart-crushing pain_. _I knew I'd hurt her with my stupid anger issues. I shouldn't have let her see me like this. No comfort I could get from talking to her is worth making her look like that. How could I do this to her?_ He knew he shouldn't have directed his anger at her. He had gone too far, but he was still pissed and he needed to go cool down. He held her gaze for another few seconds, then said, "I'm going to bed." He turned around and walked silently to the bedroom, making sure to leave the door open a few inches.

She stood in the living room, unable to move. Somewhere in the back of her mind she thought she should go to him, but she couldn't make her feet go forward. She couldn't do anything, her brain simply stopped working. She just stood there, as his words rang in her head over and over again.

_You abandoned me_.

* * *

><p><strong>Whew! There you have it. If that didn't tug at your heartstrings just a little bit, then I guess I didn't do it right. Please let me know what you think. Did you laugh? Did you cry? Did you want to give Booth a hug or did you wanna slap some sense into him and tell him to stop beating himself up?<strong>

**It'll be a while before I post a Chapter 3, I only have a vague idea of what I'm doing with it, and I take forever to write to begin with, but I'll get it to you eventually**

**AN: I know Zack didn't specifically say Booth is an honorable man, but after 5 years, I think Booth is allowed to paraphrase. I figured Brennan is allowed to remember specific details from the very beginning of her partnership with Booth because, let's face it, she's a genius.**

**Also, keep in mind that the reason Booth never noticed any signs that Zack was a killer is because he never actually killed anyone, but Booth and Brennan don't know that.**


End file.
